Method &amp; system for enhanced web page delivery

ABSTRACT

A system for and method of enhancing web page delivery. The invention provides the ability to control redirection of Web traffic of humans and search engine spiders. It can differentiate between these types of visitors to a Web page, track their movements, log critical information, and analyze the Web traffic in order to judge the success in driving quality traffic to some known goal on a Web site, such as a sale. The system may generate dynamically optimized web pages targeted to specific search engines, in order to optimize the search engine ranking and visibility of a Web site, such as an online marketer&#39;s Web site.

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.60/200,205, filed Apr. 28, 2000, the contents of which are hereinincorporated by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to the enhancement of Web pagedelivery. More specifically, the invention employs techniques inidentifying visitors, both humans and search engine spiders, andappropriately redirecting them to specific Universal Resource Locators.The invention employs templates and generates virtual Web pagesoptimized for particular search engines. Thus, the invention hasapplication in the field of electronic commerce.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The ability to manage and control the typical Web site has become anincreasingly demanding task. This is due to the complex nature of Websites and their use of various technologies that provide dynamic contentwith the aid of complex content management systems utilizing databasesystems. These Web sites are designed to provide the optimal experiencefor the human user. This is often done by using sophisticated graphicsand multimedia to provide a highly visual and personalized experiencefor visitors. For the online marketer, all these factors provide adifficult environment for them to do their job of ensuring highvisibility of their Web site, analyzing customer behavior and thenacting on that behavior in a timely and responsive fashion.

From the situation described above, three primary factors for which helpis required may be identified: visibility, control and analysis.

“Visibility” involves all the points of presence that a Web siteprovider has on the Internet that allow visitors to find links to theprovider's Web site. This could include:

-   -   Search results in search engines    -   Banner advertisements    -   Affiliate Links    -   Promotional Emails which include Links

In each case a Universal Resource Locator (URL) or Web address isprovided that allows visitors to click on and find a page within theprovider's Web site.

Search engine visibility is extremely difficult as search enginestypically use programs called “spiders” to visit Web sites, parse thetext and then determine what terms, known as a keyphrase, best describesa provider's Web site. Such a process precludes search engines fromseeing the bulk of most Web sites as they are only able to see the texton static Web pages and not the dynamic content held in databases northe content held in graphics and multimedia. This situation leads searchengines to often misrepresent or under-represent Web sites and thecontent they hold. To compound the problem, each search engine usesdifferent criteria for ranking making it even more difficult to find asingle page structure that appeals to them all. This also has an impacton the available number of pages that visitors doing searches could bedirected to in order to find the content they are after. The visibilityproblem has been dealt with in the past by creating “doorway” pages forboth people and search engines to enter through, but while this is arefinement of the problem it does not solve the problem as a balancebetween what the search engines see and what people see must still bestruck.

“Control” relates to the ability, when directing visitors to aprovider's Web site, to send them to the appropriate “landing point”.That is, send them to the most appropriate page rather than just to theHome page of the Web site. This is often a difficult task, especiallywhen it is desired to change the page to which to direct visitors. Insome cases, this is just not possible. For example, with search engines,if a page is indexed, the URL to which visitors will be directed cannotbe “changed” at all. Similar cases with varying degrees of difficultycan be made for banner advertisements, affiliate links and promotionalemails.

“Analysis” is most important to judge the success of the Visibility andControl aspects of the process with respect to driving quality trafficto some known goal in a provider's Web site such as a sale for example.Thus, analysis in this case should provide the maximum amount ofinformation between source and sale. While analysis of Web traffic isquite common, it is limited in its ability to easily identify the sourceof the traffic and also in how well integrated it is with the Visibilityand Control aspects. Having determined successes and deficiencies, it isnecessary to be able to easily and in real time make changes to theVisibility and Control aspects. If possible, some situations should behandled automatically. Existing solutions track traffic once it comes toa provider's site but only determine its source with a great deal ofwork and often requiring changes to the Web site to do so. Thesesolutions have no integration with the Visibility and Control aspects.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect, the present invention is a method of enhancing web pagedelivery, comprising the steps of: receiving a request for a web pagecontent from a requestor; identifying the requestor as either a humanvisitor or a search engine spider; and redirecting identified humanvisitors to a web page in an existing web site. The system may, foridentified search engine spiders, dynamically generate one or more webpages optimized for the particular search engine spiders, and returngenerated web pages to the identified search engine spider.

Different web pages may be dynamically generated depending upon theparticular search engine spider identified as the requestor. Updateabletemplates are merged with user entered data or information stored in acatalog database to dynamically generate the one or more web sites. Inanother aspect, the present invention is an apparatus for practicing themethods described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an aspect of the system in itsenvironment of use.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating the main process of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating the perform action process.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a process of redirecting andtracking actions used in the system.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a redirection selection processused in the system.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating an optimized dynamically generatedpage process.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In one aspect, the invention is a system (e.g., a method, an apparatus,and computer-executable process steps) for dynamically generating webpages for search engine spiders while redirecting human visitors to aweb page in an existing web site.

Preferred embodiments of the system of the invention will now bedescribed with reference to the accompanying drawings. The system isdescribed below in terms of both overall methodology and a physicalimplementation in an actual working software application, termed the“Information Exposition and Control Engine”, or more briefly “the IXCEngine”. The system is intended to be integrated with technology thatdelivers Web pages and is invoked during the initial stages of the Webpage delivery process.

A. High Level Description

The IXC Engine leverages the hypertext transfer protocols to controlwhere a requested web page is held. Accessing a Web page typically isaccomplished by the following steps:

-   -   A user types a URL into his browser;    -   The browser locates a Web server holding that URL utilizing a        Domain Name Server (DNS);    -   The browser sends a request to the located Web server for the        desired page;    -   The Web server obtains the browser's request and processes it;    -   If the desired page is held at that site, the content of that        page along with a satisfactory response code are returned;    -   The Web browser receives the Web server's response and any        content or data along with the response code; and    -   If the response code indicates a successful interaction, the Web        browser will present the Web page contents according to the        instructions on that Web page.

During this interaction, the Web server may perform other actions. Thismay include communicating to the Web browser that the desired page nolonger exists at that Web site and indicating the new location for thepage. This may be a permanent or a temporary relocation. In either case,the Web browser will accept this new location and send another requestfor the desired page and the new location. In this scenario, the stepsof accessing the desired page could comprise:

-   -   A user typing a URL into his browser;    -   The browser locating the Web server holding that URL utilizing a        Domain Name Server (DNS);    -   The browser sending a request to the located Web server for the        desired page;    -   The web server obtaining the browser's request and processing        it;    -   If the page is now held elsewhere, returning the new URL for use        in locating the desired page and a response code indicating if        this relocation is temporary or permanent;    -   The Web browser receiving the Web server's response, the        relocated URL and the response code;    -   The web browser locating the new URL using a Domain Name Server;    -   The browser sending a request to the newly located web server        for the desired page;    -   The Web server obtaining the browser's request and processing        it;    -   Returning the content of the desired page if held at that site        with a satisfactory response code;    -   The Web browser receiving the Web server's response and any        content or data along with the response code; and    -   If the response code indicates a successful interaction, the        browser presenting the Web page contents according to the        instructions on that Web page.

The IXC Engine uses this ability to handle requests and issue relocationresponses to not only control where requests are sent, but also togenerate Web page contents when needed. The remainder of this sectiondiscusses how this technique furthers the enhanced Web page deliveryobjective of the invention.

FIG. 1 depicts an environment in which the IXC Engine 10 and itsassociated graphical user interface 12 operate to provide a solution tothe problems described in the “Background” section of this application.

Note that search engine search results 18 are obtained by presenting tosearch engines 14 (via their spider programs) optimized virtual Webpages 16 especially tailored for each of the search engines 14. Theoptimized virtual Web pages 16 result in URLs that point back to IXCEngine 10 via a network such as the Internet.

IXC Engine 10 interacts (via a browser not depicted) with a customer orprospect 22 when he clicks on a link 24 that has been created throughthe IXC Engine 10 and then distributed across the Internet via Banners26, Affiliate Links 28, search engine results 18 or E-mails 30. Whenevera customer or prospect 22 clicks on one of these links 24, they areredirected to the appropriate page on an actual web site 20.

All actions taken, whether the actions are visits by search enginespiders or redirections, are logged and reported to an Online Marketer32 who configures the IXC Engine via graphical user interface 12.Customer or prospect 22 navigation through Online Marketer's Web site 20can also be tracked and reported through image tags placed on each webpage.

B. Lower Level Description

Below are described the primary processes of an embodiment of theinvention: a main process shown in FIG. 2; a perform action process asshown in FIG. 3; a redirect and track process as shown in FIG. 4; aselect redirect process as shown in FIG. 5; and an optimized dynamicallygenerated page process as shown in FIG. 6. Describing these as separateprocesses is for ease of explanation only, and is meant by no means tobe limiting. Indeed, one skilled in the art should easily envision otherprogram structures not organized into five processes that still fallwithin the scope of the present invention.

Several definitions will aid in the description:

-   -   The Web delivery process is via a Web server. IXC Engine 10 can        either run on the same Web server as the actual web site 20 or        it can run on a separate Web server. The Web server that hosts        IXC Engine 10 has part of IXC Engine 10 running as a plug-in to        that Web server using its Application Programming Interface.    -   In delivering a Web page, the Web delivery process is responding        to an “incoming request”.    -   “Return headers” are one part of the package of page content        that the process needs to generate. Specifically, the “return        headers” contain information about the content, rather than        being the content itself.    -   The “requesting agent” is the entity that is sending the        incoming request.    -   A “signature database” is a means of assigning a name to the        requesting agent. Each requesting agent has characteristics        described in the signature database and these characteristics        map to names.    -   The redirection is performed by issuing a return header that has        an HTTP protocol identifying a temporary redirect.    -   A “spider” is a search engine's requesting agent, sending        incoming requests to obtain Web pages for evaluation.    -   A “keyphrase” is what a customer or prospect 22 enters into a        search engine to obtain a list of Web pages about that topic.    -   A “tag” is used to keep track of individual customers or        prospects 22 who visit the Web page. Different visitors will        have different tags. New visitors will not have been given tags        previously.        Main Process

Main process 201 is depicted in FIG. 2, and may be comprised of thefollowing steps:

Step 210—Main process 201 begins, having control handed to it from theWeb delivery process, normally controlled by the Web server.

Step 220—Receive an incoming request. This is the request for a Web pagethat the Web delivery process has received.

Step 230—Identify requesting agent using signature database. Now therequesting agent has a name. Typically spiders are individuallyidentified and human visitors are identified as such. Otheridentifications include human visitors from a particular organization,etc.

Step 240—Based on the signature identification and the request, performa particular action. The action may include tracking the visitor,generating an optimized page dynamically, etc. The details of thisprocess are described in the next section.

Step 250—Prior to ending main process 201, log the details of theactions that have been taken for future reporting.

Step 260—Main process 201 is complete.

Perform Action Process

The individual steps which comprise the Perform Action Process 240 areillustrated in detail FIG. 3. In this process, the required actions aredetermined and performed. The steps which comprise this process are asfollows:

Step 310—Program control is picked up from main process 201.

Step 320—Associate incoming request with action(s). The incoming requestmay trigger one or more actions to be carried out shortly. This includestracking the visitor, generating an optimized page dynamically, etc. Forthe moment, simply note the actions required, if any and take them.

Step 330—Determine if the incoming request is a request for a passwordprotected page. Determine whether the associated actions indicate ausername and password has been stored previously that can be given tothe agent (who is now named).

Step 340—If the answer to the determination of Step 330 was in theaffirmative, the username and password are added to the incomingrequest. This request will now be able to access a password protectedsystem imposed by the Web delivery process, if and when control isreturned to it.

Step 350—Initialize return headers. Any basic standard information maybe included here.

Step 360—Determine whether the identification/request pair indicate theneed to create an optimized dynamically generated page. The answer willusually be a “yes” for agents named as spiders and “no” for humanvisitors, but human visitors may have page contents generated for themas well.

Step 370—If the answer to the determination made in Step 360 is “no”,then program control flows to the Redirect and Tracking Process.

Step 380—If the answer to the determination made in Step 360 is “yes”,then program control flows to the Optimized Dynamically Generated PageProcess.

Step 390—Pass control back to Main Process 201.

Redirect & Track Process

In this process, the appropriate redirection and tracking actions aredetermined and performed. FIG. 4 depicts the steps in this process:

Step 410—Program control is picked up from the “Perform Action” process240.

Step 420—Determine whether the incoming request indicates a previouslytagged visitor.

Step 430—If the answer to the query of Step 420 is “no”, then create anew tag for that visitor and include it in his return headers. Thus,when this visitor returns he will do so with this tag.

Step 440—Determine whether the incoming request relates to a URL thatrequires the update of active routing state information. This occurswhen the decision process for redirection is based on previous trafficvisits or redirections. Update of the active routing state informationcould include any form of numeric updates whether representing a dollarvalue or traffic number.

Step 450—If the answer to the query of Step 440 is “yes”, then updatethe relevant active routing state value, such as the indication that aparticular page has been reached by a particular visitor.

Step 460—Determine whether the incoming request requires a redirection.If no, return program control to the “Perform Action” process 240.

Step 470—If redirection is required, then perform “Select Redirect”process (shown in FIG. 5).

Step 480—Output the updated headers returned from the previous step.

Step 490—Return to the “Perform Action” process.

It should be noted that using a redirect for an image allows Web siteproviders to place image markers on their Web site that will redirect toan invisible image but produce traceable logs indicating which pageseach visitor visits. A cookie/redirect image pair can be used toidentify a visitor and log the visitor's path through a Web site. Thevisitor is identified only by the information held in the cookie that isnothing other than a unique number.

Select Redirect Process

In this process, a detailed redirection is selected. FIG. 5 depicts thesteps of this process:

Step 510—Program control is received from the Redirect and Trackingprocess.

Step 515—Determine whether the current redirect is a simple redirect(e.g., a fixed URL). If “yes”, then perform skip to Step 520, otherwisecontinue from Step 525.

Step 520—Lookup the redirect URL to be used in the return header.

Step 525—Determine whether this is an Active Routing URL. If it is,checking and updating of state information is required. If it is anActive Routing URL, perform Step 530, otherwise continue from Step 550.

Step 530—Determine whether the present redirect is a thresholdredirect—that is, does state information require checking and updatingbefore a redirect decision is made. If “yes”, perform Step 535,otherwise perform Step 445.

Step 535—Check the threshold state information. If it has beenreached—then perform Step 540, otherwise perform Step 545.

Step 540—If the threshold has been reached, the state information needsto be updated and the relevant (“winning”) URL chosen for the header,with all subsequent requests for this threshold test going to this URL.

Step 545—As a number of URLs may be chosen at this stage—choose a validone using the appropriate mechanism (random or round-robin) from thevalid URLs.

Step 550—Determine whether the present redirect is a “smart redirect”. A“smart redirect” involves a simple redirect with the inclusion of aprimary key from a database that can be included in the URL to allow forthe selection of a dynamic page at the redirect website. If this is a“smart redirect”, perform Step 550, otherwise continue with Step 560.

Step 555—For a “smart redirect”, extract the primary key and generate aURL using this primary key.

Step 560—Determine whether the present redirect is an “advancedredirect”. An “advanced redirect” uses pattern matching processes togenerate a URL. If this is an “advanced redirect”, proceed to Step 565,otherwise continue at Step 570.

Step 565—For an “advanced redirect”, pattern matching may be based onthe referring URL as well as using any fields in the database being usedfor the content visibility of which “advanced redirect” is a part.Multiple patterns may be defined with different generation codedepending on the URL to be created. This step generates a URL using anyinformation available from the referring URL or the database connectedthereto.

Step 570—If none of the other “create-URL” schemes are valid, thengenerate a default URL.

Step 575—At this point one of the previous steps has resulted in thegeneration of an appropriate URL. From the URL a header with a URL inthe correct format is created for ultimate use in a return header to therequesting browser.

Step 580—Return control to the “Redirect and Track” process.

Optimized Dynamically Generated Page

In this process, optimized web pages for search engines are generated.FIG. 6 depicts the steps in this process.

Step 610—Process continues from the “Perform Action” process.

Step 620—In this step the process accesses the request which has beenidentified as requiring a web page generated for it.

Step 630—Based on the request, the appropriate content data is accessedfrom either a data store held in the IXC Engine (data was enteredmanually) or from a datastore external to the IXC Engine which could bea database.

Step 640—Based on the request, the appropriate Hyperlink structure willbe chosen. For manually entered text a multi-tiered structure will becreated giving the appearance of multiple web pages connected to supportthe keyphrase being promoted and hence accessed by the request. Forcontent accessed from an external datastore, a single web page will becreated (links will exist in this page to many other pages representedin this same datastore). Additional links can also be included topromote other keyphrases and/or records in other datastores.

Step 650—Based on the request and the requester the most appropriatetemplate is selected. This template indicates the best method to presentthe data content accessed in step 630. A different template can existfor each search engine. A template can also be used for human visitorswhich could include identification based on some browser criteria, e.g.create a web page for a Mobile Telephone browser.

Step 660—Merge the content from 630 and the template from 650 to producethe appropriate page.

Step 670—Output the merged information in the form of headers and pageinformation that can be read by browsers.

Step 680—Return control to the “Perform Action” process.

Configuring and Reporting

To assist in operating IXC Engine 10, it is necessary to have auser-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) 12 to configure thesettings. For example, GUI 12 is employed in changing the redirect URLfor simple redirects and the specifications for more complexredirections.

A reporting module operated through GUI 12 may report all informationcaptured throughout the previously described processes, and access thereal time state information mentioned for Active Routing. From thecaptured information it is possible to:

-   -   Identify the number of unique customers or prospects 22        (“visitors”) being directed to a site through each of the        channels (each referring URL that directs to the Inceptor        server).    -   Generate click stream analysis from tracking URLs.    -   Determine conversion metrics (a visitor reaching a particular        page) along with any additional referral information available        upon reaching that page (e.g. dollar value of an order).    -   Identify the number and frequency of search engine spider        visitors.

All of the information described above can be generated in simple reportformats in real time to show the most up-to-date state information.Aggregation of all the data, or select portions such as groupings oftraffic channels data, may be performed to provide this information on adaily, weekly or monthly basis. Consequently, a detailed “media-mix”analysis can be performed to provide accurate cost benefit analysisacross all traffic channels based on cost of acquisition (e.g. cost ofbanner advertisements) and their value (e.g. value of each sale where asale is marked as a conversion).

A real time tracking interface is also provided to allow selectivetracking and monitoring of URLs. Monitoring allows a person, such as anonline marketer 32, to see the number of visits to a particular page andif appropriate the value of the conversion.

C. Description of a Preferred Embodiment

This section includes a description of a preferred physical embodimentof the inventive system. Each of the process steps described in theprevious section are not all described again, but instead some specificexamples are provided in order to demonstrate in specific terms how theinvention might operate.

The Plug-In

A plug-in is required when IXC Engine 10 is operating on the same Webserver as the web site 20 to which it is redirecting traffic. Thisplug-in is needed to differentiate which requests are coming to IXCEngine 10 and which should be passed onto the Web site 20. This isdetermined by the URL requested. If the URL requested is one used by IXCEngine 10, then it is handled by IXC Engine 10, otherwise it is handledby the Web server as it would have normally.

A preferred deployment is to operate IXC Engine 10 on a separatededicated Web server using a subdomain of the actual web site's domainname. That is, if the domain name used by the web site waswww.inceptor.com, then the domain is inceptor.com and a subdomain couldbe www2.inceptor.com. Different Web servers may use subdomains of thesame domain and still share cookies associated with the same domain.This is important when using cookies between web servers for the purposeof identification and ongoing tracking across those web servers.

Identifying Agents and Spiders

The ability to differentiate agents and spiders and thus identify humanvisitors (customers or prospects 22) is accomplished by examining theUser-agent tag and the IP address of the HTTP request. Signaturedatabase 34 stores both pieces of information and accepts frequentupdates to keep this data fresh. An example of an extract from signaturedatabase 34 is shown below:

user-agent$TV36_Mercator_n2s7_A-1.0: AltaVistauser-agent$TV36_Mercator_n2s7_B-1.0: AltaVista ip$128.177.243.*:AltaVista ip$128.177.244.*: AltaVista

Here, an AltaVista spider is recognized by its user-agent tag holdingthe phrases “TV36_Mercator_n2s7_A-1.0” or “TV36_Mercator_n2s7_B-1.0”, oralternatively be recognizing it has an IP address between 128.177.243.1and 128.177.243.255 or between 128.177.244 and 128.177.244.255.User-agent tags and IP addresses may also be identified explicitly toidentify visitors as human and respond accordingly.

Associated Username and Password

It is also possible to take some traffic and assign it a username andpassword to allow it to access secure parts of a Web site. This occursas part of the redirection process by providing the required user-id andpassword as used in a HTTP authentication process.

Generating Dynamic Pages

A key feature in the process of generating optimized dynamic pages,usually for search engine spiders, is the use of templates. Templatesdictate how information is presented and thus what information is neededeither from a database or from the provider of a Web site 20 through GUI12. Each template has placeholders for dynamic content placed in carefullocations within an HTML (Hyperlink Text Markup Language) page. Some ofthe typical pieces of information required include:

-   -   Title—the title of the web page    -   Keyphrase—with what words does the provider want to promote the        Web Page for (i.e., what relevant search words would most likely        be used by a person searching for this page, or more        appropriately the page to which they have been redirected).    -   Keyphrase Concepts (up to 8)—Supporting sentences for the        keyphrase without using the same words as the keyphrase.    -   Descriptive Sentence—a short description of the information held        in this page    -   Text—a large amount of text that is used to populate the bulk of        the generated Web page. This text usually is derived from the        Web page to which a visitor is being redirected.

When using templates to publish data from a database (the “hidden web”),it is also important that the database fields are mapped to thetemplate's placeholders with any additional manipulation functions beingmade available. To enhance this capability, IXC Engine 10 may leveragethe versatility of the Perl programming language. Perl scripts can beused in the templates to allow the greatest flexibility in addingfeatures and manipulating data to generate the most appropriate HTMLpages for each search engine.

It should also be noted that the flexible nature of the templates andtheir application allows for non-HTML pages to also be generated fromthe data provided. This may include pages of the following format:

-   -   XML—eXtensible Markup Language (using any specified format        definition); or    -   WAP—Wireless Application Protocol.

All pages created may also be presented to non-spider traffic. Forexample, a Web provider could generate a WAP version and make thisavailable to human users browsing through their mobile phones. These canbe identified by the user-agent string used by WAP-browsers.

The following is an excerpt from a template:

<HTML lang=“<# system$language #>”> <HEAD> <METAHTTP-EQUIV=“Content-Type” CONTENT=“text/html; charset=<# system$charset#>” <META name=“description” content=“<# user$MetaDescription1 #>”> <#system$MKW_tag #><# system$MetaRefresh #> <TITLE><# user$Title1#></TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <center> <H1> <# user$KeyPhrase1:capital #></H1> <H2> <# user$KeyPhrase1:permutation:capital #> <#system$PageRandPunc #> <# user$KeyWordConcept1 #> </H2> </center><p><b><# user$KeyPhrase1:capital #></b>: <i><# system$text:sentence#></i> <h2><# user$KeyPhrase1:capital #> <# user$KeyWordConcept2:capital#></h2> <# system$Image1 #> <h3><# user$KeyWordConcept3:capital #></h3><# system$first_paragraph #> <h2><# user$KeyWordConcept4:capital #></h2><# system$linklist #> <# system$other_paragraphs #> <# system$DomainLink#></BODY> </HTML>

A key feature of the IXC Engine 10 is that the templates may be updated(along with the spider signatures) automatically and remotely and thatthe templates drive the data requirements from both the GUI and thedatabase perspective.

Redirection

As has been outlined in the preceding part of this application, thereare multiple ways that a redirection can be determined. Before coveringthese in detail, the redirection process itself is covered as the samemechanism is used throughout the system.

The Redirection Process

IXC Engine 10 leverages the HTML standards for Server Response Codes. Toexplain this process, assume that the IXC Engine 10 controls (it may ormay not generate a Web page depending on its use) the URL:http://www2.example.com/offer.htm and redirects human users who requestthis page to: http://www.example.com/bargain.htm. To perform aredirection, IXC Engine 10 performs the following actions (it is assumedthat IXC Engine 10 is operating on a Web server that handles thesubdomain www2.example.com):

-   -   Receives a request (this could be from a search engine placement        or other URL placement on the internet such as a banner        advertisement) for a URL http://www2.example.com/offer.htm    -   Determines that the request is from a human and that a        redirection is required.    -   Establishes that the redirect URL is:        http://www.example.com/bargain.htm    -   Issues a header with a response code 302 Moved Temporarily with        the Location header URL set as        http://www.example.com/bargain.htm

The definition of this particular response code, in the working model,falling within the category of “Client Request Redirected, furtheraction necessary”, is as follows: Moved Temporarily—The requested URLhas moved, but only temporarily. The Location header points to the newlocation. Immediately after receiving this status code, the clientshould use the new URL to resolve the request, but the old URL should beused for all future requests.

The temporary nature of the redirection ensures that multiple accessesfrom the same source of traffic will always request the original URL andnot cache the redirect URL. This is important, as the IXC Engine allowsfor the redirect URL to be changed at any time with real time effect. Assoon as this URL is changed the next person to request the original URLwill be redirected to the newly entered redirect URL.

This same principle is used for all redirections. What will change ishow this redirect URL is determined.

Additional information can be added to the redirection URLs which canidentify the source of the redirected traffic (e.g. which search engineor which email campaign). This information then enriches the weblogsstored in the web server 20 rather than only having this informationstored in the IXC Engine's logs. This enhances the information stored inthe standard web logs used in all web servers.

Determining Redirect URL's

Given the basic principle of redirection described above, a number ofmechanisms are available for determining the redirect URL. There areessentially two classes of redirect determination tasks—static andactive. Within each of these classes several approaches are available.Static approaches available include:

-   -   Simple—for each URL a redirect URL is explicitly assigned    -   Smart—the redirect URL is determined according to a simple rule        that places a primary key from a database into a URL mask    -   Advanced—generates a redirect URL using pattern matching        techniques found in the Perl programming language. It takes        values from both the original URL as well as any of the fields        in the database being used to populate the templates.

For Active Routing URLs, a list of static URLs are made available(entered by the administrator of the software). The available methodsfor determining which URL to use to redirect a visitor include:

-   -   Random—select a URL at random from a list of static URLs    -   Round Robin—take the next URL from a list (each subsequent        visitor gets the next URL in the list starting from the        beginning once the end of the list has been reached)    -   Successful Conversion (Threshold Bound)—select URLs via the        Random or Round Robin mechanism but keep track (tracking is        covered in the next section) of each visitor to see if they        reach a conversion page (a web page is designated as such a        page). For each visitor that reaches this point increment a        counter against the initially chosen URL. If this counter should        reach a preset threshold limit, all subsequent traffic is then        directed to this URL.    -   Successful Conversion (Time Bound)—same as Successful Conversion        (Threshold Bound) except that no threshold is set. Instead a        time is set at which point the URL with the greatest number of        conversions is the URL that all subsequent traffic is directed        to.    -   Target Limited—this also uses conversion counters as in the        previous two approaches. For each URL in the list an upper bound        is set for the number of conversions allowed. Visitors are        directed to the next valid URL (random or round robin mechanism)        where a valid URL is one that is in the list and has not yet        reached its target limit. There must always be a default URL in        case all URLs reach their limit.    -   Date Restrictions—each URL in the list of static URLs has a date        range to select from. Each visitor is redirected to the next        (random/round robin) valid (according to the date) URL.

To reinforce these descriptions, several examples are now provided forthe scenarios described above.

Simple Example

For each URL provided by IXC Engine 10, a static URL is assigned. Thismay easily be looked up as described in Step 520.

IXC URL Simple Redirect URL http://www2.example.com/offer1.htmhttp://www.example.com/bargain.htmlhttp://www2.example.com/banner/test01.htmlhttp://www.example.com/prod/may.html

In both examples, a URL is mapped to a redirect URL. The redirect URLexists on the actual website (these could be static or dynamic pages).The IXC URLs can have any structure so long as the correct subdomain isused.

Smart Example

In smart redirects there is a database available (this could be a textfile) with multiple fields for each record. One of the fields is aprimary key (unique identifying field) for the database. The samedatabase may be used multiple times and in different ways. Each use iscalled a campaign. The following extract of a database is used in theexample (only a portion of the Description fields are shown). Note thatthe field ISBN is the primary key—it is a unique identifier for eachrecord.

Author Author ISBN Title Surname Firstname Description 01234567890 LearnJava in a Err Prog M. This book Day describes... 23451220999 How to FlyWright Orville Basic avionics are explored... 88889393211 Travel the USWalker Long A walkers handbook...

For each campaign, a mechanism for generating the IXC URL (from the dataavailable) is set. This is constructed by choosing which fields from thedatabase to use in the URL structure. For example, if we select thefields: Title and Surname, the IXC URLs would look as follows:

http://www2.example.com/Learn_Java_in_a_Day/Err/ 01234567890.htmlhttp://www2.example.com/How_to_Fly/Wright/23451220999.htmlhttp://www2.example.com/Travel_the_US/Walker/88889393211.html

Next, each of the records using a simple redirect must have a redirectURL generated dynamically for them. This is accomplished by specifyingthree components that will make up the redirect URL: Stem, Primary Key,Tail. The following is an example of such a specification.

IXC URL IXC URL Stem Primary Key IXC URL Tailhttp://www.example.com/book?isbn= <#ISBN#> &detail=yes

This would generate the following URLs for the above examples:

http://www.example.com/book?isbn=01234567890&detail=yeshttp://www.example.com/book?isbn=23451220999&detail=yeshttp://www.example.com/book?isbn=88889393211&detail=yes

Using the Simple Redirect approach has wide use for systems that utilizethe primary key to generate a dynamic page.

Advanced Redirect

The advanced redirect mechanism uses the same process for generating theIXC URL, but uses a much more sophisticated process to generate theredirect URL. It has two parts: the Match Path and the RedirectSpecification. The Match Path matches the incoming URL that is, the IXCURL. This allows extensive use of the IXC URL as it can have additionalinformation added to it and then incorporated into the redirect URL.Both use the Perl protocol for specifying a regular expression for theMatch Path and the redirect specification.

Multiple Matching Paths may be specified. The first one that matcheswill then have its redirect specification enacted to generate theredirect URL. Should no Matching Path match the IXC URL, a default URLwill be used.

The following example shows how the Advanced Redirect can be used.

Match Path Redirect Specification Wright/(.*?)/.*http://www.example.com/author=<db$AuthorSurname#> .*?/.*\.htm.*http://www.example.com/isbn=<#match$2#>

In the first example, a match will occur whenever a URL has “Wright” inthe midst of the IXC URL. This will then cause a Redirect URL to begenerated using Author's surname that comes from the database entry forthat record (the correct record is chosen based on the primary keyinformation held in the IXC URL).

In the second example, the match is made with any IXC URL and theRedirect URL is generated by using the information held in the IXC URL.In this case, the second matching component (the part preceding the“.htm”) is used to build up this URL.

These two examples show some simple uses of the database and matchingcomponents in building up a Redirect URL.

Random Redirect Selection Example

In selecting an Active Routing URL through Random selection, a list ofstatic URLs is specified as follows. The following static URLs areassigned for the defined active URL www2.example.com/active/offers.htm:

http://www2.example.com/active/offers.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/offer1.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/offer2.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/offer3.htm

Whenever any visitor clicks on the URLhttp://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm, (this URL may be embedded ina banner advertisement, affiliate link, email or a search engine result)they will be taken to one of the three “offer” URLs within thewww.example.com website—chosen at random.

Round Robin Example

Using the example shown in the Random Example, if Round Robin were used,each visitor using the URL would be sent to the next URL in the list.The following table shows an example of redirections that would occurfor the first 5 visitors to the URLhttp://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm:

Visitor # to http://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm Redirect URL 1http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer1.htm 2http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer2.htm 3http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer3.htm 4http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer1.htm 5http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer2.htmSuccessful Conversion (Threshold Bound) Example

In this example, a list of static URLs(use the previous example's list)is appended with a threshold value and a page marker (described in alater section) that indicates a successful conversion. A successfulconversion therefore, is a visitor clicking through this URL(http://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm) and (during the same onlinesession) arriving at the indicated page.

In this example, a threshold of “3” is set, and a selected page ismarked. Since either Random or Round Robin may be used to select thenext Redirect URL initially, it is assumed that Round Robin has beenselected. If the selected page is reached by any visitors, a counter isupdated for that redirect URL. The following table shows an example ofsome interactions. For ease of depiction, the Redirect URLs areabbreviated as follows: “http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer1.htm”is depicted by “offer1.htm”. Also, “counter1” will signify the counterassociated with offer1.htm, “counter2” will signify the counterassociated with offer2.htm, and so on.

Visitor # Redirect URL Successful? Action 1 offer1.htm Yes counter1=1 2offer2.htm Yes counter2=1 3 offer3.htm No No action 4 offer1.htm Yescounter1=2 5 offer2.htm No No action 6 offer3.htm Yes counter3=1 7offer1.htm Yes counter1=3, threshold reached 8 offer1.htm Yes No action9 offer1.htm No No action

Visitor 7 converting takes the counter for offer1.htm over the threshold“3” and hence all subsequent visitors are taken to offer1.htm.

Successful Conversion (Time Bound) Example

In this example, conversion works identically to conversion as in theprevious example, except that instead of tracking a threshold, at acertain time the offer with the highest counter is selected for allsubsequent redirects. Using the same example as above, we set theartificial time for the decision to be 12 noon.

Visitor # Time Redirect URL Successful? Action 1 09:00 offer1.htm Yescounter1 = 1 AM 2 09:30 offer2.htm Yes counter2 = 1 3 10:00 offer3.htmNo No action 4 10:15 offer1.htm Yes counter1 = 2 5 11:45 offer2.htm NoNo action 6 11:50 offer3.htm Yes counter3 = 1 7 11:55 offer1.htm Yescounter1 = 3 8 12:05 offer1.htm Yes counter1 has PM highest 9 12:10offer1.htm No No action

The only difference in this case is that the highest counter is chosenat a given time rather than a threshold value.

Target Limited Example

In this example, each redirect URL has an associated thresholdassociated with it. As in the previous examples, a counter is updatedfor each successful conversion. Once the threshold has been reached fora particular URL, no further redirects are sent to it.

The following test data is used (based on previous examples):

http://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm Threshold Valuehttp://www.example.com/testoffers/offer1.htm 3http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer2.htm 6http://www.example.com/testoffers/offer3.htm 10

Using this test data and assuming Round Robin is used to select fromavailable redirect URLs and similar schemes for counter maintenance,these results follow:

Visitor # Redirect URL Successful? Action 1 offer1.htm Yes counter1 = 22 offer2.htm Yes counter2 = 5 3 offer3.htm No No action 4 offer1.htm Yescounter1 = 1 5 offer2.htm No No action 6 offer3.htm Yes counter3 = 9 7offer1.htm Yes counter1 = 0 (no more) 8 offer2.htm Yes counter2 = 4 9offer3.htm No No action 10 offer2.htm Yes counter2 = 3 11 offer3.htm Yescounter3 = 8

As demonstrated in this example, after visitor 7, offer1.htm is nolonger used as it has reached its threshold value and is no longervalid.

Date Restrictions

This example demonstrates how date or time restrictions can influencewhich Redirect URLs are selected. For each redirect URL, a valid daterange must be used. This is shown in the following table:

http://www2.example.com/active/offers.htm Valid From Valid Tohttp://www.example.com/testoffers/ 04-Jan-2001 04-Jan-2001 offer1.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/ 04-Jan-2001 10-Jan-2001 offer2.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/ 11-Jan-2001 15-Jan-2001 offer3.htmhttp://www.example.com/testoffers/ DEFAULT DEFAULT offers.htm

Using this test data (assuming Round Robin for multiple valid choiceselection) these results follow:

Visitor # Date Redirect URL 1 4-Jan-2001 offer1.htm 2 4-Jan-2001offer2.htm 3 4-Jan-2001 offer1.htm 4 5-Jan-2001 offer2.htm 5 5-Jan-2001offer2.htm 6 12-Jan-2001  offer3.htm 7 15-Jan-2001  offer3.htm 816-Jan-2001  offers.htm 9 16-Jan-2001  offers.htm

This example demonstrates that only offers valid for the visitor's visitdate are selected. For dates outside of all the valid date ranges, adefault Redirect URL (“offers.htm”) is used for all Redirect URLs.

Tracking

Tracking uses Redirection and cookies to track visitors through a Website. This is accomplished by placing an image on a page that needs tobe tracked. The image is placed using a standard HTML image reference,and could look as follows:

<IMG HEIGHT = “1” WIDTH = “1” SRC =“http://www2.example.com/tracker/contents.gif“>

The URL used is an IXC URL that will require a Simple Redirection to areal GIF file that is in fact invisible. The IXC URL is classifiedinternally as a tracking URL and thus requires a cookie to be associatedwith the IMG request. If no cookie is supplied then one is allocated.Note the following with respect to cookies:

-   -   They can be permanent or session based    -   They ONLY contain a unique identifier (number) so that hold NO        personal identifying information    -   They are associated with the Domain used—in the example above        they are associated with all subdomains that use example.com as        part of the domain specification    -   Once allocated to a visitor they are passed with all subsequent        requests to the installation of IXC that uses this domain.

The cookies are also allocated whenever any visitor uses any of the IXCURLs. This allows the identification of the initial source of a visitorassuming that an IXC URL is used for each of the sources of visitortraffic: Search Results, Banner Advertisements, Affiliate Links, Emailcampaigns. Visitor traffic that arrives directly at the actual websitewill have a source identification of the first tracking IXC URL that itcomes across—this identifies where the visitor was first noticed.

With the trackers in place, visitor traffic can be reported on with thefollowing information:

-   -   Initial source of the visitor traffic    -   Which pages were visited (that were marked with unique image        references)    -   How long a visitor stays on a page (time to next movement)    -   Where visitors leave a site from (last page visited in a        session)    -   Other details passed with the image reference (discussed in        later section)

Reporting on the above statistics and metrics using these facts arecreated. Additional information can be gathered and reported on and iscovered in a later section.

Cache Busting

To speed up downloads many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) andbusinesses use caching. Caching stores pages accessed by personsconnected via their Internet services so that persons accessing the samepage may use a local copy rather than getting a new copy of the pagedirectly from the issuing Web site. This can cause problems with theimage markers used in tracking as cached image references will notaccess the IXC Engine to access the marker and hence will not update theIXC logs.

To circumvent this problem, advanced markers are employed which useJava-script to generate what appears to be a unique marker reference foreach access of the markers. This is done by appending a timestamp, whichis ignored by the IXC Engine, but seen by the caching software as aunique URL. An example of the Java-script code is shown below:

<NOSCRIPT> <IMG HEIGHT=“1” WIDTH=“1”SRC=“http://www2.example.com/tracker/contents.gif?js=no”> </NOSCRIPT><SCRIPT LANGUAGE=“JavaScript”> var d = new Date(); document.write(“<IMGHEIGHT=\“1\” WIDTH =\“1\”SRC=\“http://www2.example.com/tracker/contents.gif?ts=”);document.write(escape(d.getTime())); var r = Math.random();document.write(“&r=”); document.write(escape(r)); document.write(“\“>”);</SCRIPT>

This script ensures that any browsers that can't handle Java-script willrun the normal image reference with a reference saying Javascript wasnot available, otherwise it generates a unique image reference using atimestamp and thus “cache-busting”.

Tracking with Additional Information

As was shown in the previous section, additional information may bepassed with the image references. In the previous case, it was either atimestamp or simply a note to indicate that Java-script was notavailable—“?js=no”. This information is logged and if needed reported.

Information that is useful to gather includes the value of conversionsmentioned in previous sections. This is done by including a reference tothe value variable (stored in the IXC Engine for reference) and then thevalue of the conversion.

A simpler image reference example (the more complex Java-script code isamended in a similar way) could appear:

<IMG HEIGHT=“1” WIDTH=“1”SRC=“http://www2.example.com/tracker/sale.gif?value=%ordervalue”>

In this example, the variable stored within the IXC Engine “value” andthe variable found on the tagged web page is “%ordervalue”. This“%ordervalue” variable is part of the web page that has been marked andwill be replaced by the value it holds when the marked web page isgenerated.

Reporting on Additional Information

As well as the content provided via the markers, other information isalso sent along in the logging process. Most importantly, the referringURL is logged. This is the URL used to generate the web page that themarker has been placed on. The following is an example of such a URL:

http://www.example.com/Style.view?merchantid=11&prodCode=1234&Color=BL

This information can be processed in reports to enhance the data beingshown in the clickpath. If merged with external data (e.g. productdescriptions) it could add much more meaning to reports and allowdifferent reporting views.

Tracking Retention E-Mail Traffic

For web traffic generated through retention email, it is possible totrack with more detail. An email campaign is the result of creating anemail template that has several URLs embedded in the message. Theobjective is to get existing customers, who have supplied their emailaddress and given their consent to be sent email offers, to click onthese URLs and perform some action (e.g. purchase, signup etc).

To allow more detailed tracking, each email that is sent can have anidentifier built into its URLs that identifies the recipient of theemail. With this information, the source of the traffic can beidentified to the recipient of the email allowing reporting to not onlyshow whether the email campaign was successful for each recipient, butalso allowing more detailed tracking of what each recipient does on theweb site.

This information can then be used to refine subsequent email campaignsby taking into account recipients actions to previous email campaigns.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled inthe art from a consideration of the specification or practice of theinvention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification andexamples be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spiritof the invention being indicated by the following claims.

1. Method of enhancing web page delivery, comprising the steps of:distributing URL links across the Internet wherein said URL linksinclude marketing links and search engine search results, said URL linkscreated through a marketing control engine, and wherein said URL linkspoint to said marketing control engine in that humans who click on saidURL links over a network are sent to said marketing control engine;redirecting human visitors, who click on said URL links, from saidmarketing control engine to a web page, in an existing web site, thatcorresponds to said clicked URL link; logging redirections, of humanvisitors, for reporting to an online marketer; tracking movements ofsaid human visitors across said existing web site of said onlinemarketer; receiving a request from a requestor, through said marketingcontrol engine, for a web page content for a target web page;identifying the requestor as either a human visitor or a search enginespider by examining a user-agent tag and an IP address of an HTTPrequest of the requestor, and comparing the user-agent tag and the IPaddress with requesting agent characteristics; dynamically creating avirtual web page, for said target web page, wherein content of saidvirtual web page is tailored to a specific search engine to increasesearch engine rankings for said target web page, and wherein saidvirtual web page provides linking data designed so that a search enginesearch result for said target web page contains a URL link that pointsto said marketing control engine; delivering said virtual web page tosaid search engine spider; logging visits by search engine spiders, forreporting to said online marketer; analyzing web traffic generatedthrough said marketing control engine.
 2. The method according to claim1, wherein the request for a web page content is received via a UniformResource Locator (URL) link published or stored in the Internet.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the URL link includes banner advertisements.4. The method of claim 2, wherein the URL link includes affiliate links.5. The method of claim 2, wherein the URL link includes e-mailcampaigns.
 6. Method of enhancing web page delivery, comprising thesteps of: distributing URL links across the Internet wherein said URLlinks include marketing links and search engine search results, said URLlinks created through a marketing control engine, and wherein said URLlinks point to said marketing control engine in that humans who click onsaid URL links over a network are sent to said marketing control engine;redirecting human visitors, who click on said URL links, from saidmarketing control engine to a web page, in an existing web site, thatcorresponds to said clicked URL link; logging redirections, of humanvisitors, for reporting to an online marketer; tracking movements ofsaid human visitors across said existing web site of said onlinemarketer; receiving a request from a requestor, through said marketingcontrol engine, for a web page content for a target web page;identifying the requestor as either a human visitor or a search enginespider; dynamically creating a virtual web page, for said target webpage, wherein content of said virtual web page is tailored to a specificsearch engine to increase search engine rankings for said target webpage, and wherein said virtual web page provides linking data designedso that a search engine search result for said target web page containsa URL link that points to said marketing control engine; delivering saidvirtual web page to said search engine spider; and logging visits bysearch engine spiders, for reporting to said online marketer.
 7. Themethod of claim 6, wherein different web pages are dynamically generateddepending upon the particular search engine spider identified as therequestor.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein updateable templates aremerged with user entered data to dynamically generate the one or moreweb sites.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein updateable templates aremerged with information stored in a catalog database to dynamicallygenerate the one or more web sites.
 10. The method of claim 6, whereinthe redirecting is accomplished via a redirect URL.
 11. The method ofclaim 10, further comprising the step of: updating in real time theredirect URL without affecting the existing URL.
 12. The method of claim10, further comprising the step of: automatically changing the redirectURL based on real time state information which can be influenced by theinteraction of other requestors of web page content.
 13. The method ofclaims 1 or 6, further comprising the step of: logging for laterreporting and dissemination all requests and actions taken.
 14. Themethod of claim 13, further comprising the steps of: identifying thesource link from which a human visitor requests a web page content; andtracking via use of redirection with an IMAGE tag the human visitoracross a plurality of web pages.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherebytracking occurs across multiple domains.
 16. The method of claim 14,further including the step of: supplementing with additional dynamiccode around the IMAGE tag in order to ensure that every request for theIMAGE is unique and to avoid caching the IMAGE data, thereby forcingeach request to be processed uniquely.
 17. The method of claim 14,further including the step of: logging additional information includingan email address to which a link was redirected, a referror URL and allinformation stored there.
 18. The method of claim 14, further includingthe step of: logging additional information including the value of a anytransactions occurring during a human visitor's visit on a web page, areferror URL and all information stored there.
 19. The method of claim13, wherein a redirect URL includes information regarding the source ofweb traffic being logged.
 20. Apparatus for enhanced web page delivery,comprising: a web server adapted to receive a request for web pagecontent from a requestor; and a control engine operating on the webserver, the control engine adapted to execute the process steps of;distributing URL links across the Internet wherein said URL linksinclude marketing links and search engine search results, said URL linkscreated through said marketing control engine, and wherein said URLlinks point to said marketing control engine in that humans who click onsaid URL links over a network send a request to said marketing controlengine, redirecting human visitors, who click on said URL links, fromsaid marketing control engine to a web page, in an existing web site,that corresponds to said clicked URL link, logging redirections, ofhuman visitors, for reporting to an online marketer, tracking movementsof said human visitors across said existing web site of said onlinemarketer, receiving a request from a requestor, through said marketingcontrol engine, for a web page content for a target web page,identifying the requestor as either a human visitor or a search enginespider, dynamically creating a virtual web page, for said target webpage, wherein content of said virtual web page is tailored to a specificsearch engine to increase search engine rankings for said target webpage, and wherein said virtual web page provides linking data designedso that a search engine search result for said target web page containsa URL link that points to said marketing control engine, delivering saidvirtual web page to said search engine spider, logging visits by searchengine spiders, for reporting to said online marketer, and analyzing webtraffic generated through said marketing control engine. 21.Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable medium,the computer-executable process steps to enhance web page delivery, thecomputer-executable process steps comprising: code for distributing URLlinks across the Internet wherein said URL links include marketing linksand search engine search results, said URL links created through amarketing control engine, and wherein said URL links point to saidmarketing control engine in that humans who click on said URL links overa network send a request to said marketing control engine; code forredirecting human visitors, who click on said URL links, from saidmarketing control engine to a web page, in an existing web site, thatcorresponds to said clicked URL link, via a redirect URL; code forlogging redirections, of human visitors, for reporting to an onlinemarketer; code for tracking movements of said human visitors across saidexisting web site of said online marketer; code to receive a requestfrom a requestor, at said marketing control engine, for web page contentfor a target website; code for identifying the requestor as a humanvisitor or a search engine spider; code for dynamically creating avirtual web page, for said target web page, wherein content of saidvirtual web page is tailored to a specific search engine to increasesearch engine rankings for said target web page, and wherein saidvirtual web page provides linking data designed so that a search enginesearch result for said target web page contains a URL link that pointsto said marketing control engine; code for delivering said virtual webpage to said search engine spider; logging visits by search enginespiders for reporting to said online marketer; and analyzing web trafficgenerated through said marketing control engine.
 22. Apparatus forenhanced web page delivery, comprising: a signature database adapted tomaintain characteristics mapped to names of requesting agents; a contentdatabase adapted to maintain textual web content, and textual dataconcerning audio, visual, multimedia and dynamic web content; a templatedatabase adapted to maintain Hyperlink templates; and a web serveradapted to execute the process steps of: distributing URL links acrossthe Internet wherein said URL links include marketing links and searchengine search results, said URL links created through a marketingcontrol engine, and wherein said URL links point to said marketingcontrol engine in that humans who click on said URL links over a networkare sent to said marketing control engine; redirecting human visitors,who click on said URL links, from said marketing control engine to a webpage, in an existing web site, that corresponds to said clicked URL linkvia a redirect URL and tracking human visitors across a plurality of webpages; logging redirections, of human visitors, for reporting to anonline marketer; tracking movements of said human visitors across saidexisting web site of said online marketer; receive a request from arequestor, through said marketing control engine, for a web page contentfor a target web page; identifying the requestor as a human visitor or asearch engine spider using the signature database; selecting a templatefrom the template database, the template having a Hyperlink structuretailored to a specific search engine wherein the Hyperlink structure isformatted based on search engine ranking criteria of said specificsearch engine; dynamically creating a virtual web page, for said targetweb page, by merging content data from the content database with thetemplate, wherein content of said virtual web page is tailored to saidspecific search engine, and wherein said virtual web page provideslinking data designed so that a search engine search result for saidtarget web page contains a URL link that points to said marketingcontrol engine; delivering said virtual web page to said search enginespider; logging visits by search engine spiders for reporting to saidonline marketer; and analyzing web traffic generated through saidmarketing control engine.
 23. The apparatus of claim 22 whereinredirection is based on previous traffic visits and redirections.